Trump wants alternate healthcare plan ‘done’ by Jan. 30

Modern Healthcare – Friday, November 21, 2025
By Hadriana Lowenkron, Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said he hopes to secure a solution by Jan. 30 for an impending surge in health insurance premiums for millions of Americans, the first timeline he has publicly offered for what he has pitched as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

Trump said in an interview with Fox News Radio Friday that Republican senators Rick Scott of Florida and Katie Britt of Alabama are working on the proposal.

“We have a Jan. 30 day coming up, I’d like to see if we could do it by then,” Trump said. “They say, ‘well, let’s go another year.’ And I said, ‘let’s see if we can get it done by Jan. 30.’”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said House Republicans hope to pass healthcare legislation in December.

Subsidies first enacted during the Biden administration reducing premiums on plans purchased under Obamacare expire at the end of the year, threatening to push up prices for more than 20 million Americans who obtain insurance through the program.

Democrats have argued that the subsidies should be extended, and some Republicans have voiced support for at least a one-year extension that would allow more time for negotiating an alternative solution. The open enrollment period for Obamacare has already begun, meaning Americans are already seeing what insurance might cost without the subsidies.

While Democrats attempted, unsuccessfully, to use the extended government shutdown earlier this year as leverage, GOP lawmakers said they would only discuss the issue once the government reopened.

Since then, Trump has advocated a different approach that would send federal assistance directly to consumers, rather than health insurers.

“I want to give the money that we give to the insurance companies directly to the people, that the people buy their own health insurance, and that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump said in the Fox News Radio interview. “I believe that there’s good support on both sides for that.”

But such a proposal would face numerous obstacles. Outside the Obamacare exchanges, health insurance is usually purchased by groups of people, allowing prices to be negotiated and risks shared. Payments from healthy people also subsidize care for those who are ill.

Democrats were able to extract a concession from Senate Republicans to hold a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies, and that vote is slated for mid-December.

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